At last, I fell asleep, as little dreaming of danger as if I were taking a nap upon a summer day upon the banks of the Connecticut river. I slept soundly for some time, but at last I began to dream about a great many strange things. I fancied that I was wandering in a distant land—that I finally came to a great cavern, which I entered—that I was weary and laid myself down to repose—that a horrid monster stole upon me in my helpless condition, and was about to rend me in pieces; I dreamed that I attempted to rise and escape, but that I could not stir. Such at last was the horror of my mind, that I screamed aloud, and at the instant awoke from my sleep.
What was my horror to discover that my dream was almost a reality! At the distance of about twenty feet I saw an enormous alligator, with his jaws already distended, ready to press me in his fangs. He was slowly stealing upon me, but as I moved, he rushed forward, his enormous tail brandished in the air, and his claws spread, as if ready to grapple me. Quick as thought, I leaped from the ground, and at a single bound placed myself behind the trunk of the tree beneath which I had been sleeping. The monster perceived that he was foiled in his main object; but unluckily I had left my wallet, containing a loaf of bread and some cold meat, upon the ground where I had lain. The creature picked this up in his mouth, and wheeling heavily round, marched down the bank and plunged into the water. At first, I was quite satisfied to have escaped with my life; but I soon began to lament the loss of my dinner. It was in vain, however, to repine, so I seized my cudgel, and proceeded upon my journey.
[To be continued.]
Bill and the Boys.
The Lottery Ticket, continued.
The reader will remember that Tom Trudge had set off from his home in the country, to go to New York and see to the success of his lottery ticket. He soon arrived at the great city, and found, to his vexation, that the drawing of the lottery was postponed for a week beyond the appointed time. It seemed to him hardly worth while to return to his home, but what should he do to get rid of this terrible week? When we are looking forward with impatience to a certain event, the time that stands between us and the object of desire, is considered a hateful enemy, and we set about killing it as well as we can. Some people are as anxious to kill time, as if it were a lion or a grizzly bear.
At the period we speak of, some thirty or forty years ago, a common way of killing time, or, in other words, of wasting that most precious gift of Heaven, was to go to a tap-room or tavern, and drink flip, whiskey or grog, and indulge in low and vulgar conversation. Such things are considered very silly now, but it was otherwise then. Tom could think of no other way to spend his week than to go to the Jefferson and Liberty tavern, and indulge in the amusements of the bar-room. So thither he went, and by keeping himself in a state verging on intoxication, he continued to while away the awful seven days.
At last the appointed hour came. A firm conviction had taken possession of Tom’s mind, that he was to draw the prize of fifty thousand dollars. He did not seem to consider that there were twenty thousand tickets, and that his chance of getting it was only one in twenty thousand. To a deluded mind, such an obstacle is nothing; one chance in twenty thousand is just as good as certainty. When the drawing took place, the office was thronged with a crowd of people, most of them wretched in the extreme. There were old men, tottering upon the verge of the grave; there were haggard women, evidently starving for want of the money they had invested in the lottery; there were young persons, of both sexes, apparently sunk in vice and wasted with poverty; there were the sick and emaciated, mingled with the strong and the reckless. All anticipated with hope and expectation,—and yet all, or nearly all, were destined to go away with disappointment and sickness of heart.
Tom got close to the revolving wheel, and, with his ticket in his hand, watched the numbers as they were declared. Several times his heart beat violently, as a number came out near his own. The drawing continued for more than two hours, and his hopes began to fly, as he perceived that the prizes were nearly all out. At last his own number, which was 777, was announced, and immediately after, it appeared that it had drawn the prize of 50,000 dollars!!!